T-Mobile 4G Mobile Broadband 'Passes' Start Coming May 20

A busy T-Mobile is offering a new way for subscribers to take advantage of its 4G network without committing to an annual contract. Mobile broadband passes will be available, starting May 20 and at prices from $15 to $50.

T-Mobile is offering
subscribers a new, contract-free way to connect to its 4G network. Beginning
this Sunday, May 20, it will offer No Annual Contract mobile broadband service
passes.
The passes come in four
options: 300MB for a one-week pass, for $15; 1.5GB for a one-month pass, for
$25; 3.5GB for a one-month pass, for $35; and 5GB for a one-month pass for $50.

T-Mobile says it knows
many of its customers want the flexibility to be able to access mobile
broadband speeds without committing to an annual fee. To further simplify
things, there will also be an auto-refill option. The passes will be available
online, and through T-Mobile retail stores and some retailers.

As T-Mobile works to build
out a Long-Term Evolution (LTE) network alongside its Evolved High-Speed Packet
Access (HSPA+) 4G networkan initiative largely made possible by the
consolation prize of spectrum and roughly $4 billion offered by AT&T
following its failed bid to purchase the Deutsche Telekom-owned
carrierT-Mobile announced
it will be cutting more jobs. While the anticipated LTE network has
brightened the carriers prospects, CEO Philipp Humm, in a memo sent to
employees this week, said T-Mobile still needs to better align its costs with
its revenue realities.
A contributor to those
realities is that T-Mobile is the only top four carrier not to offer an Apple
iPhone, which is incompatible with its current network technology. As T-Mobile
upgrades to LTE, however, that scenario will change, and T-Mobile is expected
to finally be able to sign on the dotted line with Apple.
China Mobile, Chinas No.
1 carrier and the largest carrier worldwide by subscriber numbers, is also
expected to be able to work out a deal with Apple for the iPhone, following
an upgrade to LTE.
Despite its
belt-tightening, T-Mobile is said
to have been (or still be) in talks with smaller carrier MetroPCS about the
possibility of merging or of Deutsche Telekom taking control of the two. The
carriers technologies, however, are currently incompatible, which would make
for a messy merger but succeed in bolstering T-Mobiles ability to gain size
and customers, as Bloomberg
reported would be the deals intention.
Contributing to a busy
month, T-Mobile has also joined Sprint and others, collectively naming
themselves the Alliance for Broadband Competition, in calling the Federal
Communication Commissions (FCC) attention to agreements Verizon has penned
with several cable companies. Time Warner, Comcast, Bright House Networks and
Cox have agreed to sell Verizon spectrumwhich would give it an excessive
concentration of especially important spectrum, T-Mobile said in a May 14
statementas well as to bundle their offerings with Verizons, and vice versa.
A joint operating entity
(JOE) between the parties, mired behind a wall of redacted documents and FCC
filings, say the Alliance, have
the parties effectively agreeing to stop competing with each other.
Speaking to this, DirecTV wrote to the FCC May 16 to call its attention to
Verizons decision to no longer offer standalone DSL service. DirecTV was
worried, it said, about the connection between that decision and Verizons new
agreements with the cable companies, and the potential harm the agreements
could cause to both competition and consumers.
T-Mobile, in its May 14
statement, said the Verizon deal, in simplest terms, is against the public
interest.
Follow me on Twitter: @eWEEK_Michelle.

Michelle Maisto has been covering the enterprise mobility space for a decade, beginning with Knowledge Management, Field Force Automation and eCRM, and most recently as the editor-in-chief of Mobile Enterprise magazine. She earned an MFA in nonfiction writing from Columbia University, and in her spare time obsesses about food. Her first book, The Gastronomy of Marriage, if forthcoming from Random House in September 2009.